Find string with special char using regex

Question

I need to scroll a List and removing all strings that contains some special char. Using RegEx I'm able to remove all string that start with these special chars but, how can I find if this special char is in the middle of the string?

For instance:

Pattern.matches("[()<>/;\\*%$].*", "(123)")

returns true and I can remove this string

but it doesn't works with this kind of string: 12(3).

Is it correct to use \* to find the occurrence of "*" char into the string?

Thanks for the help! Andrea

fge · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-20 14:06:08Z

5

You are yet another victim of Java's ill-named .matches() which tries and match the whole input and contradicts the very definition of regex matching.

What you want is matching one character among ()<>/;\\*%$. With Java, you need to create a Pattern, a Matcher from this Pattern and use .find() on this matcher:

final Pattern p = pattern.compile("[()<>/;\\*%$]");

final Matcher m = p.matcher(yourinput);

if (m.find()) // match, proceed

answered Jan 20, 2012 at 14:06

fge

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2 Comments

Andrea Girardi Over a year ago

it Works :) !Pattern.compile("[()<>/;\*%$].*").matcher(res).find()

fge Over a year ago

Beware with you \* here: it will match a literal star. If this is what you want, fine. If you want to match both a backslash and a star, you need to match against "[()<>/;\\\\*%$]".

Rich O'Kelly · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-20 14:08:48Z

2

Try the following:

!Pattern.matches("^[^()<>/;\\*%$]*$", "(123)")

This uses a negated character class to ensure that all the characters in the string are not any of the characters in the class.

You then obviously negate the expression since you are testing for a string that does not match.

Is it correct to use \* to find the occurrence of "*" char into the string?

Yes.

edited Jan 20, 2012 at 14:08

answered Jan 20, 2012 at 14:03

Rich O'Kelly

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Comments

user647772 · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-20 14:04:18Z

0

Pattern.matches() tries to match the whole input. So since your regex says that the input has to start with a "special" char, 12(3) doesn't match.

answered Jan 20, 2012 at 14:04

user647772

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